Is Starting A Business Risky?

Is Starting A Business Risky?

2018-12-18T01:27:41+00:00

So today, I’ll talk a little bit about risk. Risk is an interesting one because most people that I know think that starting a business is risky, and I didn’t come from an entrepreneurial background in any way, shape, or form.

My parents hadn’t had a business background. I had no friends that have business backgrounds. So it was all very new to me and I just naturally thought that getting in business is risky. Looking back now though when I had a job (I used to be an air traffic controller) if I was to phrase my thought processes as whether or not, you know, staying in the job was safer than starting a business, I would have said that “Yes, business was definitely going to be riskier than staying in the job” but in hindsight I think I was wrong. When I look back at the reason why I quit my job was simply because that a job was not able to ever give me a lifestyle that I wanted.

Particularly with my wife Tess, and my new son, I didn’t want to go to a job everyday working eight, nine hours a day, five days a week, forty eight weeks a year for the rest of my life. And that means a job was one hundred percent unable to give us the life that we really wanted. Whereas in business – and obviously we’re talking about the right kind of business here – let’s face it, most businesses aren’t that great either. You’re looking for a business model that can actually give you the life that you want and that’s why we looked at online businesses, as we were looking for something that we could actually make passive. Something that would give us the time, the lifestyle that we wanted.

So, we all know nine out of ten businesses fail and does that make them risky? Well, the way we looked at it was a job was one hundred percent risky because it was one hundred percent unable to give us the lifestyle that we wanted. So therefore, even if ninety nine out of a hundred businesses fail, it was still less risky for us to start a business than to stay on the job.

Now, something else that’s happened over the years as we have achieved some success, and I still used to think you know, that businesses are risky. I used to think that you don’t want to be reliant on Google. You don’t want to be reliant on this business model. You don’t want to be reliant on this currency or you don’t want to be reliant on this particular economy. It certainly doesn’t matter what level of success you get to, you can always look at it as being risky.

And that’s when I came across a guy named Jim Rohn. I’m sure many of you will have heard, Jim is unfortunately not with us anymore and after watching a couple of his old videos I sort of really came to the understanding that if you can become a great entrepreneur you can start recognizing opportunity and being able to make them happen, and bring value to the market place in such way that you are rewarded for it, then that is the least risky position you can ever be in. A great entrepreneur, they don’t wait for somebody to tell them that they can have a job. They can never be fired by anybody. They never have to worry about a specific business model lasting forever because we all know business models don’t last forever.

A great entrepreneur is really what everybody should be aiming to be in life no matter what your background because that is the lowest form of risk. You can have it. Now, that might be hard for some people to understand but let’s face it if you’re in a job, you are reliant on somebody saying yes to you. Saying yes you can have this job and every day you turn up, you’re reliant somebody saying “Yes, you can keep your job.” If you say something wrong at the next office party, you can be fired.

So, the reality is the more control you have over the situation regardless of the environment the better. The more control you have, the less risk you have. Being a great entrepreneur means you are living at the least risky life possible. Whereas being in a job is actually the most risk you can have in your life so when you talk about risk, you need to start thinking about it in a way that perhaps is not the way that the teachers tell you or your parents tell you. What risk is actually in your life right now and what’s the risk for the future? I spoke to a great friend of mine, Carl recently and he’s about to quit his job. He’s built up his eCommerce business which is fantastic, but I asked him if he was worried about the future, as you never really know what will happen in business, whereas he is used to getting a paycheck and he said, he said something which I’ll never forget that is that, look, the problem with this job is that he could see the future, he could see all of his future, he could see right through to when he’s going to retire and what his wage would be, he knew what his job would be for the rest of his life. And that was far scarier and far riskier than quitting his job.

So hopefully you can understand the point I’m trying to get across here is that what’s a lot of the world will tell you is risky, it’s perhaps not as risky as you think it is and perhaps the risk that you’re taking on is far greater than you think it is. If you ever really think about that, watch this video a couple of times if you need to. I hope it helps. You can never go back once you cross the divide and start seeing success and again we’re not really talking about all businesses here. Not all businesses are good businesses. You’re looking for business models that will give you the life that you want so it’s very important to design the life that you want first and then figure out what business model out there is actually going to help you to achieve it.